Hi we've just had a fire door survey and amongst the recommendations has been to replace lots of doors as ''We can confirm that these doors were installed as a 60 minute fire rated doors to the requirements set at the time of manufacture and with accordance with BS476 PT22/ BS EN 1634-1, however, in the last ten years the criteria for fire rated doors and testing procedures have changed since installation.'' Does this mean we have to change the doors even if they are in good condition and are regularly maintained? What if the British Standard changes in 5 years, where does that leave us then? My view is that based on the risk and controls in place we shouldnt have to replace the doors. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks

Does this mean we have to change the doors even if they are in good condition and are regularly maintained? What if the British Standard changes in 5 years, where does that leave us then? Hi, Quick answer is no. Have you had a fire risk assessment carried out or reviewed recently? If so what comments re the fire doors? FR doors are placed to either seal a fire compartment - usually FR30 in commercial premises and/or FR60 where the risk as sleeping, and to protect a means of escape, similar standards as above. Has the premises been altered over the years, that may affect the fire door requirement? What standard of maintenance - are they qualified to maintain fire doors? Is there glazing in the doors? If so is the glazing correct for the standard required? I know questions questions questions but I hope you can follow this guidance. Why not get a second opinion without divulging what you already have? You may be surprised? Take care

Hi Have you got a copy of The Best Practice Guide To Timber Fire Doors. If not – you can download a copy from the ASDMA Web Site at: http://www.asdma.com/pdf/BPG.pdf Cheers

Thanks for your comments so far. Why was it carried out? - We had a fire risk assessment and because the building has so many doors and the risk assessor only looked at a few doors - he found a few issues and from this said just check all your doors as a blanket excercise. He said he had done an assessment at another large building and they had had a door survey done which he thought was good. The thing is we had already identified most of these issues (our onsite contractor does inspections) and we were in the process of resolving. The doors - the vast majority of the ones the survey wants replaced are in excellent condition, there has been no alterations except on the floors themselves e.g. taking down and putting up a meeting room two desks down from where it was or across the room etc. Other than that, nothing much has changed. Incidentally they quoted to do all the changes (a hefty amount), but the actual report doesnt really give me enough about the doors being a problem to warrant a change of doors. Unfortunately the risk assessor who I feel was lazy didnt check the doors during the assessment. We just had another assessor come down and he found no issues and checked pretty much most of the doors as he walked around and he thinks it was probably just an overly cautious risk assessor. Its just when you have something written down you've kinda opened a can of worms!

From a very reputable well known company - qualifications seemed in order - extensive past experience showed competence etc etc. Compared to other places he had assessed we are so so so low risk so all the boxes ticked. Apart from this issue which i attribute to laziness or maybe he just didnt feel he had time on the day, the assessor was excellent and identified other issues we hadnt even though of which highlighted major issues that were later resolved and would have had major impact had they been missed much longer so on the one hand good and on the other lazy or maybe i'm being unfair because its raised an annoying can of worms.